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I am not one for the traditions that holidays seem to encourage. Not because I don't want to participate but I can never seem to remember year over year! By the time I do remember, it's too late to really enjoy it as a family so I just forgo altogether. Well, this year I decided it was time to hold myself accountable to a Holiday Tradition already! I chose to do a Family Holiday Portrait with the children wearing matching pajamas. I figured this would be easy to attempt year over year as long as we can always find matching pajamas right? Well, as "easy" as pictures at home sounds, it turned out to be not so easy. At least not for the non-Susie Homemaker, Crafty and Creative type like myself. My goodness, I had to do research on good set ups which I could accommodate in my home then go out and grab some home decor for placement in the photos. Thankfully, a blogger I follow, Tammie with lipstickwithsomesunshine, did a great post on DIY Holiday Pictures just in time for me to grab even more ideas!

The morning of the pictures I woke up thinking I had this in the bag. All the prep work had been completed and the only thing left to do was dress the children and take the pictures. Mmm hmm... I was in for a rude awakening. I didn't want to yell at the kids and mess up their moods which would obviously make for bad pictures. So, I tried to remain as calm as possible... towards them at least. I became so frustrated internally that I looked over at husband who was simply standing by admiring the photos and said to him "Why are you just standing there, do something!!". As if he could hear the yelling going on in my head and anticipate what I needed. Even the kids looked at me strange like "what did he do?!"... LOL. Surprisingly, with little to no direction he knew exactly what I needed and began directing the kids. "Kennedy smile... Gregory sit up... Taylor push your hair out of your face"... That's when I realized that people won't be able to tell how ratchet things were behind the scenes by looking at the pictures! I was trying to have a picture perfect photo shoot as if I was being photographed or watched.

All in all, we laughed and we yelled. The kids became just as frustrated as we did but we all gave it our best. The final results were better than I anticipated and I am definitely looking forward to this tradition next year! Check out some of our photos below...